Dienekes writes: "There are a few non-Spanish surnames in the bunch, and a few Amerindian-influenced individuals, but the Spanish impression is clearly the strongest".

The great Argentinean writer, Jorge Luis Borges, one of the few Argentineans who hadn't an Italian extraction, said that Argentineans were Italians who spoke Spanish. I haven't now (and must go to school) the names of Argentinean players, but Messi, Mascherano, Milito, Cambiasso etc. the same Maradona have an Italian surname and Heinze has a mother of Italian extraction. Among Argentineans the percentage of Italians is higher than the Spanish one and very high is the Amerindian mitochondrial.It isn't true that Argentineans come above all from South Italy. Both in Argentine and Brazil probably North Italians are more than the South ones.

I've heard before that averaged faces are supposed to be good looking. I'd have to say that the Argentina Guy is very good looking but what happened to the Greek? He seems kind of ugly. The other averaged faces just seem kind of OK, but not really good looking.

Among the 23 Argentinian players are Italian surnames: Demichelis, Di Maria, Messi, Mascherano, Pozo, Burdisso, Bolatti, Palermo, Milito, Burdisso, and probably all the others have some Italian among their ancestors.

Speaking as an Argentinian and an anthropologist, I would say that although most surnames are foreign, almost 60% of us (as a country) have maternal amerindian lineages (Corach). Lots of surnames are, indeed, Italian or Spanish, but the inmigration was sex-biased - male migrants matched with amerindian women. We Argentinians feel european, but this is a cultural prejudice... we found 70-80% amerindian lineages in lots of provinces, and at least 50% in Buenos Aires.

"I've heard before that averaged faces are supposed to be good looking. I'd have to say that the Argentina Guy is very good looking but what happened to the Greek? He seems kind of ugly. The other averaged faces just seem kind of OK, but not really good looking.

I doubt the averaging of faces is attractive."

It depends on what faces you do averages from.

If you average only ugl faces, the averaged one remains ugly.

If you averag good looking faces, the result is a very attractive face (better than each of the components)

If you average "all kind of" faces, the result is attractive, but not "optimal attractive".

Additional:People tried to average faces of "Doctors", "Footballplayers", "Bodyguards", "Farmers" etc to get a "Prototype Face" for this job....

So averaging the faces of footballplayers of a nation, doesnt really produce the face of the nation. Because all are professional football players. But professional footballplayers dont look like "normal" people.

Most argentines have italian ancestry, but even then, even more argentines have spanish ancestry.

The italian embassador said three years ago that 60% of Argentines had at least one italian grandparent, but I am sure that over 80% have spanish ancestry, either from the late XIX early XX century immigrants, or from colonial times.

Truth, that means that 56% of argentines have amerindian ancestors, not that argentines are 56% amerindians.

The three ethnicities that contributed more to the argentine ethnogenesis are spaniards, amerindians (I know they are not an ethnicity) and italians, very far behind them you also have jews, central and eastern europeans, and middle easterners (mainly syrians/lebanese and armenians)as important minorities

Argentina isn't you typical latin american country, but it isn't also Australia or NZ

The rest are all spanish surnames, except perhaps for Garce that could be french, and Pozo that could be italian (In italian it is Pozzo) but such changes in spelling are not strange here, especially with italian double consonants. Castagna can become Castaña, Gabriela Sabatini had one b instead of two like Rory Sabbatini.

Fanty, you are right, but football is still a better sport than most others for making an average face, at least for Argentina.

If the composite were made of argentine basketball players, it would be an almost completely white one because people with important native american ancestry are rarely tall enough to be basketballers.

With rugby and polo you would have completely white teams because only rich people play those sports.

Football/soccer is the most democratic one, played by all races and social classes, and the closest to being representative of the whole population. And you can be tall or short like Messi and be successful at that sport.Obviously, it isn't 100% representative but it is the most representative sport

On a second look at the Argentinian composite, I think he doesn't look full Caucasoid. There are visible, however small, traces of Amerindian admixture in and around his eyes. But I still agree with Dieneke that he looks closest to Spanish composites among European ones.

El Lurker, you are well informed. Yes, I have thought like you: Pozo is a Spanish surname, but could be also the Italian Pozzo.

I haven't now the list, but Higuain, who has just do three goals, is certainly Basque and not Spanish, and being Spanish and not Italian the language we can suppose that the Italian surnames are certainly Italian and the Spanish ones could be frequently "Spanishized".

In the 12 spanish surnames I counted basques also. otamendi is a basque name too.I counted in the 2 "others" Gabriel Heinze is known to be from a family of Germans of the Volga (Russia). I have left Garcè not identified, its name can have been corrupt in the transcripts.Pozo, I have put him among the Spaniards.I put in the Italian names: DeMichelis, Burdisso, Mascherano, Di Maria, Bolatti, Pastore, Messi, Milito, Palermo.The amerendian characters are brought only by two or three players: Tevez, Romero, and maybe Otamendi and Rodriguez.

Some name can provoke confusion. Many think that Picasso is a Spanish name, because of the famous Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, while it is an Italian name from Genoa.Unfortunately the Argentinians don't follow the Spanish use to add the maternal name to their fathers, otherwise we would have a clear view of their ancestries.Example, the name of the young Uruguayan Gonzalo Barreto Mastropierro, that show his double ancestry .

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